A Day in the Life of a Writer….

I just survived my daughter’s first slumber party, while nursing a sinus infection. I deserve a medal or at least a nice box of chocolate. Anyway, all the wee ones are back at their homes and I had a really good night’s sleep. I thought I would walk you through a writing day, a perfect day.Writing day’s occur only 2, maybe 3 days a week, most have lots of interruptions. Grab a cuppa and prepare for amazement.

The Perfect Writing Day

6am: crawl out of bed, avoid all human contact until first cup of Irish Breakfast is consumed

6:30-7:30: eat breakfast, harass children to get ready for school, pack lunches, take shower, clean kitchen, set up writing supplies on kitchen table, take kids to school

7:45: make second cup of tea or coffee in new coffeepot, find a snack and place within easy reach of laptop. Round up all necessary electronic gadgets (phones, Ipods, etc)

8am: tend to Social Media responsibilities/blog. I found writing a blog posts works well to get the juices running. Working on something other than my WIP cuts down on initial frustration. See I’m doing that now. Read through a few blogs and current tweets. Try to find something to respond to.

8:45–12:00 : Start by reviewing what I wrote/edited the session before. Then don’t look at the clock until my stomach tries to eat itself from hunger. I know from experience, once I leave the chair it’s over. If I allow myself to think about errands or household responsibilities nothing will be written. 3 or 4 hours may not sound like much, but that’s the best I can hope for.

12-3: lunch, errands, housework that the house elf refuses to take care of must be accomplished before I pick the children up from school.

3-5pm: snacks, homework, and making dinner

5pm-7: eat dinner as a family, try to pull as much information about the kids day as humanly possible without a mind-meld. Clean kitchen, finish homework, force the kids to take a bath and get school work ready for the next day.

The rest of the evening varies between spending time with the husband and kids to surfing the web for research or social media.

Not as glamorous as you thought? I’ve learned, it’s not the quantity of time spend on writing, but the quality of that time. Now I have some writing to do…